This invention relates to new and useful improvements in a key holding tool for locksmiths.
It is often necessary for locksmiths to fit locks with a substitute key such as when a house key, automobile key or the like has been lost. A skilled locksmith in fitting such a key grips a key blank in a tool as an extension of the tool, and through experience can feel the pattern of bitting required to impression the lock. In using such a tool, it is imperative that the key blank be held as a rigid extension of the tool. If not, the locksmith cannot get a good feel of the tumblers in the lock. In addition, any relative movement of the key and the tool will scratch or otherwise deface the head of the key.
Applicant is the owner of U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,598 directed to a plier-like tool that clamps a key blank between the forward end of a pair of jaws in an arrangement that holds the key in a forwardly projecting extension of the tool. Specifically, this prior patent relates to a tool that utilizes a first jaw that has a flat longitudinal base surface and a second jaw that utilizes a longitudinally extending sharpened projection that cuts slightly into the key blank when the jaws are clamped on a key for holding the blank in an extension of the tool.